Stanley Park

Sunny Saturday at Stanley Park. 

Robert Burns poet. Also immortalized are Lord Stanley and runner Harry Jerome.

Clouds roll by over the Lost Lake. Birds of a feather flock together but so do tortoises. Spotted sprawled on a log (or something else) in the middle of lake.

Given a slice of bread to share in the joy of birdfeeding. Other swans preened as they swam, but this hungry one jus sat here enjoying the attention of the excited crowd. It was so fat.

Stayed on the bus that led me to BC place. Science world.

Yaletown on other side. Rolling through parks by Falsecreek.

Cut through to Cambie. 

Queen Elizabeth Park

End of the road and I'm revisitting places.

Walk from Van Dusen Botanical Garden to Queen Elizabeth Park.

Nice scents of flowers.

Pleasant afternoon spent sitting on a bridge in the quarry

In the company of friends and flowers.

Canucks Game 4 against Blues

Quarterfinal series games against the St Louis Blues began last Wednesday. I can't help but to be absorbed in the excitement of NHL playoff season. The buses display cheer it"GO CANUCKS GO". Stores offer game day discounts. 

Game 1: Canucks 2 - Blues 1

Last Friday, downtown was rowdy as hell. Blaring car horns, twirling playoff towels, Vancouverites eager to give hi-5s and share the joy of the win that night. No pictures unfortunately. Above is the captain and shutout capable goalkeeper in figurine form.

Game 2: Canucks 3 -  Blues 0

I wandered to BC place a day before Sunday's first away game in Washington. And at the GM place stadium, I stepped into the Team Store. Aside from the home and away jersey with the orca, and the third jersey with the skate-in-rink logo, the vintage flying skate design in red, gold and black is pretty sweet too. Anyway, purchasing a jersey was out of the question. I'll go back there again. Maybe a T-shirt or cap will suffice.

Game 3: Canucks 3 -  Blues 2

Now, I'm really rooting for them this playoffs. Luongo and the team just keeps my mood up despite the slow exam week. Let's see how tonights game turns out. One more to win. 

Go Canucks Go!

Birding the Boundary Bay

Armed with the bird checklist (http://www3.telus.net/driftwood/boundbl.htm) and a quick identification guide of birds of north america I headed south to Boundary Bay regional Park. Cross checking of photographs with images from the internet were done to my best ability.

Belting beautiful chirps. Not too sure what it is. I suspect its either a sparrow or a towhee. Any avid birder wants to enlighten me. Please?

The Canada Goose is abundant in winter and spring. I liked how these ducks and goose seem to always occur in pairs. A distance away downstream, I woke up a Mallard couple from their late afternoon duck nap. Sorry!

This hawk beginning to take flight. Due to the light limitations, I can't identify the colours. It is most likely a Bald eagle which is common in winter and spring. I did have another photograph of the white head and large yellow bill characterisitic of the Bald Eagle. Since there's no conclusive evidence to say for sure which hawk it is, I like to believe it could be the Rough-legged Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk or Osprey.

Walking out into the delta drawn by the flocks of birds flying across the horizon. Nearest to the shore were crows. After about 500 metres out, my presence was acknowledged by curious gulls. At first, just the occasional recce by the lone ranger but I was shocked when a whole bunch of them came. If only I could understand gull language (ooi-oo) because I suspect they must have been deliberating a preemptive attack on me. I stopped snapping shots at my flying adversaries.

This lone Long-billed Dowticher, fairly common in spring, was the first shorebird I saw and it had the privilege of my delighting me with its hilarious locomotion. Bobbing head and cyclic leg action up and down of the water surface in odd synchronity.

At the outer limit of my delta exploration, I took the above picture. Great blue Heron common throughout the year. By this time, my feet were accustomed to bathing in the cool water. My hair thrown leftwards by the strong winds. I grew tired of chasing the flock of ducks and shorebirds because despite my stealthy footsteps, they definitely were aware of the silly human child in the middle of the delta.

Too many ducks and shorebirds to identify. At the moment I was there, they did not allow me a close up view of them. Although frustration of chasing them got to me, I did enjoy listening to the feeding symphony; a busy harmony of quacks and tweet-tweets. From photograph analysis, I identified easily the Green-winged Teal abundant most of the year except summer.

A marsh habitat. Worth remembering was the close encounter with the 9-month old Burmese mountain Puppy. The beautiful innocent eyes, the clean coat of brown-black-white. Someone else was walking its ugly but completely unique bull dog trio.

A notice on the board said that if I had arrived earlier that day from 9am to 12pm, I would have been able to join the weekly birding guide. It amazes me how I had come here with the ambitious plan to take the Dyke Trail to Mud Bay. The wide expense of the delta resulted in a memorable exploration and refreshing shore experience.

Lastly, this is my failed attempt at photomerging.

credit to fairyii for generous lending of canon camera for this trip

Farid Food Favourites

A slight misnomer because these aren't really my favourites. I just wanted the alliteration thing going for my first food post.

But its true, I did manage to serve on my self prepared meals while I was here. On the leftmost is fish in premix curry. I chopped in chilly and onions and served with rice. Right upper is pasta tomato marinara which comes with mushroom slices. Can't really see or remember what meat it came with. Maybe i topped it with an egg. Right centre is quaker oat for breakfast. I mixed in definite amounts of 3.25% milk, water, honey and sprinkle of raisins and sugar. It was suggested I use brown sugar next time. Lastly, right bottom is pancake desert. The pancake was freshly made by gage RAs as part of last day of school celebrations and I went crazy with generous toppings of caramel and honey. Topping it of with fudge hazelnut fantasy ice cream. 

Of course, that's just a fraction of my food creations. More to come to track my cooking journey!

Bon Apetit!

Last 15 days

I'll save a summary of my favourite moments for a later time. This post is about the what would be nice to do on my last 15 days here.

#1- Climb up Grouse Grind

picture from http://www.flickr.com/photos/15132713@N08/3106525260/

Awaiting the opening of Grouse Grind Trail. Due to freakish winter this year, the snow melt is taking longer than usual. Still hoping there's a chance to scale to the top after my last paper. The rugged terrain and steep slopes would be such an achievement. An added reward would be the view of beautiful Vancouver City from atop. 

#2- Birdwatching at Boundary Bay Regional

picture from http://lauraerickson.blogspot.com/2008/06/swan-wallpaper.html

From Boundary Bay regional park, the Dyke Trail leads to Mud Bay and Serpentine Fen. As the seasons change, millions of migratory birds stopover here at the Pacific Flyway. Trumpeter Swan, Barn Owl if really lucky. Surely some rare goose, cormorant, grebe, ducks would be there. 

#3- Stanley Park on a Sunny day

picture from http://www.alaska-in-pictures.com/data/media/22/lagoon-walk_8935.jpg

It's funny that the past two times going to Stanley Park, it rained. One more trip there to see exactly why its such a major attraction in Vancouver.

#4- Rent a boat at Horseshoe Bay

picture from http://www.sewellsmarina.com/boatrentals.html

As suggested by a friend. This looks pretty cool actually.

#5- Ice cream

picture from http://www.lacasagelato.com/products.htm#gelato

Ice cream makes the world go round, or so they say. So to round up the wishlist, La Casa Gelato. With 218 flavours, it would make for a tough decision.

More importantly, I pray that the finals goes smoothly for me, and my friends. Keep on studying and good luck!

Farm Trek

Gathering at the knoll on the sunny second last day of class. Farm trek began with free biscuits and muffins for the the trekkers. After the touching speeches, the masses moved.

I was happy to be walking right in front of the band contingent. One song I thought was really smart was "pick up the pieces". At most parts along the trek, the organizers led us in cheer.

Save the farm!

Welcoming us at the farm was country music from the banjo, harp, mandolin, guitars and bass.

I say farm, you say trek. farm! trek! farm! trek!

The costumes were hilarious. Other than the flower girl and the chicken guy, there were also the pig people, the onion child, the bee woman.

Save the pigs!

Walk around the farm. No vegetables growing yet.

Can't eat concrete!

And to save time, I walked all the way back down the Wesbrook Mall back to Gage.

twenty-four more!

Victoria in Vancouver Island

"I'm on a boat". 

Weaving in and out of small little islands. 

Forming shadows for birds to shelter as they glided the water surface.

Arriving at Swartz Bay.

Sunken Gardens at the Butchart Gardens. In comparison with postcard photos, the photo isn't any spectacle because the flowers weren't all blooming yet. But the view was still pretty sweet. The centrepiece which is the large tree stood strong above the circular shaped plants below.

Another view from the sunken garden.

Jennie Butchart more than 100 years ago started planting on the quarry garden and it remains the best garden there. Among other gardens were Rose Garden, Italian Garden, Mediterannean garden, Japanese Garden. Below is the fireworks viewing area.

Sunken garden once again. By this time, it was getting late and we made the quick decision to extend our day trip to the next morning.

By night time camera batt running low, I could only get one picture each. The Parliament Building. In the day, the scene was laid back and relaxed, with friends singing songs by the waterfront and people savouring fish and chips on the floating platform.

The Empress hotel. Heading back along the streets of downtown, the nightlife beckoned. But we headed for our backpackers inn, Ocean Island, where we coincidentally bumped into Singaporean exchange students from UDub. Our bickering at the lobby in our distinct Singaporean accent gave us away.

Good morning was mega-huge pancakes for breakfast at Joe's place. 

Craigdorroch Castle built by a coal trader Robert Dansmuir in a rag-to-riches story. His wife, Joan, and their children lived the high-life here. Back then, the castle was on top of a hill overlooking a large green area. The grounds have been since reduced to just the castle building itself as it switched ownership to Victoria College, Victoria School Board, Victoria Conservatory of Music and finally to the Craigdorroch Castle Historical Museum.

We ended our visit with the nearby Governor House.

last picture courtesy of martin

Storm The Wall

The largest event of UBC REC Calendar. They had erected this twelve foot wall about a week before the event for workshops on how to climb the event for participants. It is a team event for 5 persons, each completing a different part of the race.

At the end every team members scales the wall. 

But before that the designated team member must complete in order their respective events-swim, run, bike, sprint. As I walked out of Kaiser towards Angus, the biking event taking place in the Main Mall. 

Look at the sacrifice by the team member as his face gets pummelled into the wall, as he acts as a stepping stone for his teammate.

One of the funnier costumes. 

In the midst of all the excitement, I was rushing to complete project and project reports.